Tuesday, 29 January 2013

Nana Korobi Ya Oki

You can't beat the Japanese for a good proverb. One of my favourites is:

"Nana Korobi Ya Oki" Essentially it means "Fall down seven times, get up eight." When it comes to karate I've certainly found it true. I've lost count of the number of metaphorical (and occasionally literal) "falls" I've had on this journey. I have always so far managed to get back up though and hopefully this time will be no different.After my total "woe is me" posting of yesterday I had some stern internal dialogue words with myself (and some excellent words of advice from the lovely SueC). I've concluded that part of what I'm missing at the moment is a "beginner's mindset"*. When I first started out in karate I would be constantly running over stuff in my mind when I was doing other things. Kihon practice in the kitchen, going over taisabaki at the photocopier, sneaky kata run throughs in the work bathroom. For whatever reason over the last year I haven't really been doing this and I need to get back to it.So for now, that is the plan. Carving out some snippets of the day to consolidate what I'm going through in class. Last night for example was a good chunk of time running through my two required shodan kata (seiunchin and Sepai) and ironing out some bits that I was a little muddled on. Now I've got the blips ironed out I'll try to make sure I get a least some mental run throughs of them both this week (so I haven't forgotten everything come Friday).Little bits, often, will be my way to go I think.TTFN*This was a really good read regarding this concept. Worth checking out if you haven't already.

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The Other Cookie Blog

My regular blog resides over here at Protect The Cookie. Should you care to read about any of the other none karate related excitements of my existance.
You should definitely visit. Sometimes there are cupcakes!

"......sucking at something is a gift. It’s nothing but free information from nature, and the message reads: “Practise more”.

About Me

About this Blog

What's this all about? Somewhere to keep a record of my journey as a new Karateka. Tales of karate highs and lows for the whole Cookieblog family. Kiai!

A Little Disclaimer.

I feel I should put this on here.

The stuff I've talked about/will talk about on this blog is MY experience of Karate, at MY karate club. It's unique to me. I'm pretty sure even my Shihan and Sensai's might disagree with my interpretations of some stuff. That said, my experience is my experience. I see what I see, I feel what I feel, I write what I write. There's no right or wrong in that.

If you should see something however, that completely offends your Karate sensibilities, then I won't mind if you mention it, in a nice kind of way. You might even change my way of thinking. I'm new to this. My ideas are evolving. I certainly don't know everything, I probably never will. But I'm enjoying the learning curve.